


An Amateur Ornithologist’s Breakfast (or: So is there, or isn’t there?)

by Vita_S_West



Category: Endeavour (TV), Inspector Morse & Related Fandoms
Genre: Boys Being Boys, Fluff, Friendship, unsanctioned morse shit-talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 15:54:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30125211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vita_S_West/pseuds/Vita_S_West
Summary: Strange just wants to have a nice breakfast, but Morse might have a girl in his room. But also, he might NOT have a girl in the room... It's hard to say, but luckily Fancy is on the case.
Relationships: George Fancy & Jim Strange
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12





	An Amateur Ornithologist’s Breakfast (or: So is there, or isn’t there?)

**Author's Note:**

> :)

Despite the obvious advantages of flat sharing—such as saving money and living with a mate—living with Morse was filled with many unexpected nuisances. The man seemed to be perpetually out of spirits. He never remembered to pick up necessities for the apartment, whether they were toilet paper, light bulbs or glass cleaner. The finer points of shared living, which included the shared responsibility for the hygiene and general tidiness of the shared spaces, were entirely lost on him. 

Morse was capable of a singular level of focus, one that was exclusively furnished to his work. Swallowed by the minutiae of details that made cases seem impenetrable, Morse could reconstruct and find sense in the obscure, the archaic, the maudlin, and the bizarre. Everything else fell away. Unfortunately for Jim, this included himself, the apartment, the basics of hygiene and the basic courtesy of picking up dish soap when they ran out. 

Jim knew Morse well enough to know that this was the sort of man he was. Brilliance in some areas meant deficiency in others. How could he prioritize sweeping the floor when there were murderers to catch and mysteries to unravel? 

All the same, Jim just would have preferred that he remember the bloody dish soap. 

With a sigh, Jim added dish soap to the grocery list and went back to making coffee. It was Saturday morning and he hardly wanted to do the dishes at any rate. Besides, half of them weren’t his. It just would have been nice to have the option. 

Jim had long since learned the lesson that Morse _would_ get to his dishes eventually, but the amount of time that “eventually” covered was indeterminate and Jim could get deeply, deeply, irked with the man while waiting for that period to conclude. Sometimes, if he wanted the satisfaction of a clean sink, he just had to do it himself.

He still had a frying pan and could still rustle up some eggs and sausages in the meantime. Dishes were not for Saturday mornings. A fry-up was just the ticket, he decided, moving the mess, not all of which hadn’t been there when he went to bed the night before, from the table into the sink. An old cup of tea, long gone grey, brooding over its own abandonment. A plate thick with crumbs. Beer glasses, one with lipstick. Jim’s eyes flew to Morse’s door, shut tight. 

He had to make more of an effort to be quiet. This was probably a good thing, Jim mused, something to cheer Morse up. So much bad luck, what with the photojournalist and whatever lover’s quarrel he’d had a month ago with DeBryn. He should give them space, Jim thought.

His plans for eating breakfast at the table with the newspaper suddenly seemed threatened. Should he remain? Wouldn’t that be awkward? Perhaps he ought to go to his room. But she might not still be there, whoever she was, so he could be confining himself for no reason at all. What if the beer glasses were from days ago and no one was even _in_ the room and wind had blown the door shut? No, Morse’s shoes were by the door, so at least _he_ was home. 

When he and Morse began their flat share, Jim had thought a tie on the door would have been tawdry. Now he cursed his own foolishness. 

He flipped the eggs and sausages and put bread in the toaster, wondering if the sizzle was too loud, if the toaster’s spring mechanism was overly audible. He never realized how many innocuous sounds there were in the kitchen until he wished there to be none at all. 

He hadn’t heard them come in last night, he reasoned with himself. That meant it was probably late, which probably meant they’d gone to sleep late and were sleeping in, dead to the world. Yes, he could still enjoy his breakfast and the paper, with the curtains wide, sun streaming in. Then he could go for a walk, give anyone who _might_ need space, some space. Maybe pick up some dish soap. An excellent start to the weekend.

A loud _bang_ landed unceremoniously on the window. Jim leapt, thinking in horror a bird had flown into it. Leaning forward, fearing the worst, he was greeted with the grinning face of George Fancy, one hand shielding the glass so he could look in at Jim, and the other—holding his wallet.

Jim’s hand flew to his empty pocket as if he would find the item there, despite seeing it clutched in Fancy’s hand at his own kitchen window.

“Oi, Jim!” Fancy shouted loudly through the glass. “You left your wallet at the bar last night! I figured I’d run it over to you.”

Jim shushed him, quickly turning off the stove and removing the eggs and sausages from the heat.

“What?” Fancy shouted.

“Keep your voice down!” Jim snapped.

“What!”

Jim nearly shouted at him in frustration but pointed round the side, to the door, instead.

Fancy nodded.

“Sh!” was Jim’s greeting when he opened the door. 

Fancy gave him an odd look, clearly expecting a little more gratitude for his delivery. Glancing behind him, Jim stepped onto the step and closed the front door behind him. He still kept his voice low.

“It’s Morse,” Jim explained. 

“Is he…” Fancy began, his face clearly conferring worry, an inquiry in the negative. 

“No, no. It’s just. I think he’s got a bird over.”

“Ah, good for him.” Fancy said with an easy smile. “Are they still at it, though?” His brow furrowed.

“No, it’s all quiet.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Well, they’re probably asleep. I wouldn’t want to wake them.”

“Why? It’s past 10,” Fancy said with a shrug as if that were fair game for a wake up time. Jim could see he also had a shopping bag tucked under his arm. 

“Yes but I don’t want to interrupt them. Ruin any… magic that may be happening.”

“Magic? With Morse?”

“Well, with the right bird? She may be taken with him.”

“With him?”

“Oh, enough of that. I just wish I knew if there were someone in there with him or not.” He glanced back behind him, opening the front door a crack as if that would tell him anything. Fancy stood on his tiptoes, trying to see over Jim’s shoulder. 

“Seems quiet. Why do you think there _is_ a bird?”

“There was lipstick on a beer glass.”

“Could’ve been an old glass.”

“I don’t keep _that_ messy a kitchen.”

“What about shoes? Has she left any shoes?”

Struck by that Jim opened the door and Fancy followed him. Tiptoeing, they checked the hall and the closet. No women’s shoes.

“She could have them in there with him,” Jim said. 

“What, wearing them during? I think I saw that in a magazine once,” Fancy sniggered.

Jim snorted. “I'm sure you have.”

“I’m sure I can loan it if you want.”

“A generous offer, I’m sure.”

George gave him a cheeky grin and then paused, glancing about the hall in obvious scrutiny. “Hm, no coat either, mind.”

“Maybe she took it off in there.”

“Hm.”

They appeared at an impasse. 

“You know if we were like Sherlock Holmes,” Fancy said, stepping back out the front door. “We would look at this front walk and be able to tell if a woman with her women’s shoes had walked in your house and then walked out a few hours later. And if there was a jaunt in her step. You know to show if she’d had a good shag or not.”

“Aye, not a Sherlock between the two of us.”

“Normally I reckon we’d ask Morse, but…”

Jim laughed.

“You’re right,” Fancy said seriously. “We better call Inspector Thursday.”

Jim shook his head, grinning. “You're a load of trouble, you are.”

“More or less so than Morse?”

“Hard to say.”

“I’m the more good-looking trouble, though, right?”

“Hard to say,” Jim said again.

“Oh, you wound me!”

Jim laughed again and Fancy asked, “So are you going to keep tiptoeing?”

“No,” Jim said after a moment’s consideration. Fancy was right. It was past ten and he didn’t even know if there was a bird. “I’m going to eat breakfast. Care to join?”

“Mm, don’t mind if I do.”

“What’s in your bag? Shopping?”

“No, it’s dish soap. You were ragging on last night that you were out and it was Morse’s turn, but he was never going to remember.”

Jim stared at him. He barely remembered complaining about it, but he surely had if George Fancy came to his door with his forgotten wallet and soap.

“What?” Fancy asked. “Did he remember?”

“No, I was just going to say that I was very lucky that you came over this morning, George.”

Fancy smiled a warm, open-faced smile, one that could light up a room and would surely melt ice. In they trooped for their meal. Fancy sat at the table, while Jim cooked in the same pan, and prepared the coffee and toast.

“While I could use this nice dish soap, I think I’ll save us both the time and keep the washing to the end.”

“Re-using the pan is just a culinary technique,” Fancy asserted.

“How do you figure that?”

“You’re cooking the food in the same fat and juices so it’s more flavourful. It’s like haut cuisine,” he insisted. “Best way to do it.

“Are you saying that because it’s fewer dishes?”

“I believe that’s what Morse would call the ‘duality of man’,” Fancy said sagely.

Jim shook his head, as toast popped and eggs sizzled. He was smiling though, the kind of big smile only a good friend could pull from him. When it came time to eat, Fancy chewed and talked with his mouth full, a picture of exuberance. It was hardly the morning of quiet contemplation, but it exceeded his initial plans long before Fancy got up to put their plates in the sink and turned the tap on.

“What are you doing?”

“The dishes. My mum always taught me, if you do the cooking, someone else does the cleaning.”

“Oh you don’t have to, you’ve already been such a help.”

“Yes, but you’ve fed me. It’s the least I can do.”

It was just then that Morse’s door popped open and came out, eyes blinking at the brightness. He paused, giving them a decidedly nonplussed once-over, before wordlessly making his way to the washroom. Fancy didn't wait for the bathroom door to shut before launching himself at Morse’s bedroom.

“Oi!” Jim hissed, charging after him.

“Nobody! I don’t believe it, after all that he couldn’t even be bothered to have gotten a bird!” Fancy said, smacking the door-frame in frustration.

“Keep your voice down!” Jim glanced at the washroom door. The whine of the pipes told him Morse was about to step into the shower.

“This is unsatisfying,” Fancy griped.

“But surprising? It’s Morse.”

“I suppose you’re right. If half the stories you told me were true, we’d only be arresting her for murder tomorrow, so it’s probably for the best. To the dishes?”

“Oh, you don’t have to help.”

“But what kind of friend would I be?” Fancy said with an easy smile and a shrug. It was such a natural idea to him that he didn’t think the courtesy was impressive or in any way out of the way. He headed to the sink with a jaunt in his step, leaving Jim to smile to himself. He was good company and a better friend, that was true.

**Author's Note:**

> i just want them to hang out and be pals ok???


End file.
